It has only been 5 days of GMI (including bootcamp) and 3 days in Costa Rica, but we have already hit the ground running. The past few days have been a whirlwind, but I will try my best to summarize the important points of everything we’ve done so far!
Before boarding our flight to Costa Rica!
At bootcamp with Dr. Van Kleeck, we covered a ton of information over things like personality types and internship/teamwork best practices. We learned a lot, but here are a few points that were emphasized:
- Engineers tend to over analyze things. This became evident with our team as we worked together for our team building exercises.
- On a similar note, learning through trial and error may sometimes be the most efficient way to learn and improve. Don’t get bogged down in trying to think through solutions before actually implementing them.
- Understanding how your teammates work as individuals and in a group is an integral aspect of being part of a high-functioning team.
- Write everything down- you will forget something!
After arriving in Costa Rica, our first full day included a visit to Invenio University and Liberia Hospital. The visit to Invenio consisted of observing the DialOasis prototype, building it, assessing its strengths and weaknesses, and brainstorming ways to improve it. With very little direction or guidance, we did struggle a bit trying to put the prototype together, but it was cool to work together as a team and see one of our potential implementation projects in person.
The team assembling the DialOasis prototype at Invenio University.
Our visit to Liberia Hospital was very eye-opening. It was interesting to witness firsthand and learn about how different the hospital conditions and culture were compared to the U.S. We made many observations at the hospital and tried to come up with some needs regarding the current peritoneal dialysis processes and conditions, as well as general observations about the hospital setting and other things that stood out to us.
Yesterday, we got a briefing of what our short course would be like this upcoming week. We will be working with groups of Costa Rican students to come up with needs, generate concepts, prototype, and present the final prototype. During this briefing, I came to a realization. One recurring theme in everything we’ve done so far- visiting the hospital and university, making observations, finding needs- is that you learn the most when you reflect on an experience. This was most evident after we made our observations, both in the hospital and in some example photos provided to us during the briefing, and came up with the root problems of these observations. The analysis of these problems was what gave rise to useful and substantial needs statements. It is like a pretty intuitive concept, but I rarely consciously put this idea into practice. Moving forward, I think it would be a good idea to take a little bit of time (5-10 minutes, maybe) at the end of each day to sit down and recap the day in order to determine what went right, what went wrong, things I learned, etc. Writing these blog posts will help keep me accountable and help me make a habit out of reflection, which will help me improve personally, academically, and professionally, especially as an engineer.
Since arriving in Costa Rica, it has pretty much been all work and little play, but we got our first free day today! Some of the team went to the La Paz waterfall, and the rest of us (myself included) went to watch the Costa Rican national soccer team play Northern Ireland. This was their last home game before playing in the World Cup. We struggled a little with entering- you can’t bring bags into the stadium! I had the biggest backpack out of the group but was somehow able to find a way to make it in. If you’re not as lucky as I am, you can pay someone outside the entrance to watch your bags! Not exactly the most trustworthy method, but it gets the job done. Watching the game and being in that environment was such an incredible cultural experience. It was awesome to be able to see how everyone was so proud of their country and their team. To make the experience even better, Costa Rica won 3-0!
The view from our seats in the stadium.
In the short amount of time that we’ve been here, I have already learned so much and am having a blast getting to know my teammates better and immersing myself with everything Costa Rica. I look forward to continuing this adventure and sharing more of it with everyone!